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Defect Assessment in
Offshore Structures
A Procedure

by

F M Burdekin FEng, FRS and M J Cowling

CMPT Publication: 100/98

 ABOUT CMPT

T h e Centre for Marine and Petroleum Technology (CMPT) was set up in April 1997 as a
not-for-profit company with underpinning financial support from the subscriptions of
industry members. C M P T provides its member companies in the upstream oil and gas
industry with access to advances in science, engineering and technology (SET) that can
bring significant benefit to their business. It supports the providers of research and
innovation in bringing their capabilities and products to the industry, helping them to
ensure timely and efficient delivery and relevance to industry's needs.

C M P T operates a virtual "research and innovation trading floor" dealing in information that
will connect what industry needs with what the research community and technology
companies can provide, and with what the public sector can do to assist.

ABOUT THE OFFSHORE

D IV ON OF THE H AND

T h e responsibilities for regulating health and safety offshore were unified in a single body -
the Health and Safety Executive - as a result of the recommendations of the Lord Cullen
enquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster. A new Offshore Safety Division was set up as a result.

Research has played an important part in ensuring safety in the North Sea and will continue
to do so. A major aim is to undertake an integrated programme of projects which address
both the strategic or generic investigation of offshore hazards and the related short term
needs, for example to support safety case assessment. A risk-based research strategy has been
developed by HSE with input from the Division's Research Strategy Board to provide a
means of prioritising research effort and helping to ensure that value for money is obtained.
 Defect Assessment in
Offshore Structures
A Procedure

by

F M Burdekin* FEng, FRS and M J Cowling**

* Professor of Civil and Structural Engineering

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering
UMIST
PO Box 88
Manchester M60 I Q D

** Professor of Marine Technology

Glasgov\^ Marine Technology Centre
University of Glasgow
Glasgov/GI2 8QQ

Publication 98/100

© CMPT 1998
ISBN I 870553 330
Contents
Page
Acknowledgements 4
Summary 5
1.0 Introduction 5
2.0 Structural analysis 7
2.1 Outline procedure 7
2.2 Data required 7
2.3 Modelling 8
3.0 S-N fatigue design 12
3.1 Introduction 12
3.2 Data required 13
3.3 Partial Safety Factors 14
3.4 Assessment of reliability 15
3.5 Categorisation 16

3.6 Re-assessinent of a single joint 16

3.7 Lifetime inspection/repair planning 17

3.8 System reliabiUty 17

4.0 Detailed fracture mechanics assessinent for fracture

18
4.1 Introduction
18
4.2 Data required
19
4.3 Fracture assessment principles
19
4.4 Fracture assessment in tubular joints
24
4.5 Safety factors
25
5.0 Detailed fracture mechanics assessment for fatigue
25
5.1 Introduction
25
5.2 Data required
26
5.3 Fatigue assessment principles
26
5.4 Procedure
29
5.5 Partial Safety Factors
30
6.0 System reliability
30
6.1 Introduction
30
6.2 Joints with equal failure probability
30
6.3 Joints with different failure probability
31
7.0 Inspection and repair planning 32
8.0 References/bibliography
33
Commentary 33
Cl.O Introduction 33
C3.0 S-N fatigue design 47
C4.0 Fracture mechanics assessment for fatigue
 A C K N ENTS

This Procedure results from a prograinme of research (The Defect Assessment in Offshore Structures Managed
Programme) jointly funded by government and industry under the auspices ofthe Marine Technology Directorate
(MTD) Ltd acting as agents for the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), now the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). M T D has now been absorbed into C M P T (The Centre for Marine
and Petroleum Technology Ltd).

Most of the research in the Managed Programme was carried out at eight universities with the majority of the
development of this Procedure being performed at U M I S T and the University of Glasgow. Sponsors of the
Managed Programme include AEA Technology, BP, British Gas, British Steel, Brown &. Root, Conoco (UK), Earl
& Wright, the Health & Safety Executive, the Ministry of Defence, Mobil North Sea, River Don Castings, Shell
Exploration and Production, Sir William Halcrow and Partners, T h e Welding Institute, and Veritec.

This Procedure arose from the deliberations of a sub-group of academics and industry sponsors who formed a
Methodology Working Group. Special mention should be made of the individual contributions of Dr M F Light
(Conoco) who chaired this group, and the assistance given by Dr J Haswell (British Gas). The help and support
provided by the Managed Programme Steering Committee Chairman, Dr B Tomkins (AEA Technology) is
gratefully acknowledged. T h e publication was edited for C M P T by Judith Mirzoeff

Anyone interested in further details on this work should consult the Programme Manager:

Professor M J Cowling
Glasgow Marine Technology Centre
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8 Q Q

Tel: + 4 4 ( 0 ) 1 4 1 3 3 9 0969
Fax: + 4 4 ( 0 ) 1 4 1 3 3 0 4015

Note
The Offshore Safety Division of the Health and Safety Executive has supported publication of this report to
encourage dissemination of the results of research that has received public funding. This support does not imply
automatic endorsement by the HSE of any o f t h e technologies described.

Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that this document is based on the best knowledge available up to
the time of finalising the text. However, no responsibility of any kind for any injury, delay, loss or damage
whatsoever, however caused, resulting from the use of the Procedure presented can be accepted by CMPT, the
sponsors or others involved in its publication.
 S U M M A R Y

This review provides an assessment methodology procedure for defects in offshore structures, to supplement the
procedure given in BSI document BS 7910:1998, Guidance on methods for assessing the acceptabilify of flaws m fusion
welded structures. It is presented in a similar format. The Procedure is a set of routines for establishing the structural
integrity of welded joints in steel offshore structures, based on current research and best industry practice. It is
offshore specific in that it deals with the special characteristics of such structures in terms of detailed design and the
nature of the loading in such applications.

Routines for assessment of individual joints are combined into system reliability assessments and an overall scheme
for inspection and repair. The Procedure is supported by a Commentary that gives the background to sections of the
methodology.

BS 7910:1998 (derived from PD 6493:1991) Guidance on methods for assessing the acceptabilify of flaws in fusion welded
structures (ref 8) contains well established routines for the assessment ofthe significance of defects in welded
structures.

T h e present Procedure document has been produced to provide more detailed and offshore specific guidance,
including a background Commentary, than can be included in BS 7910:1998. This Procedure is based on a
programme of six years' joint government and industry funded research (The Defect Assessment in Offshore
Structures Managed Programme) under the auspices of MTD. It has been extended to include subsequent work
sponsored by HSE at UMIST and recent developments associated with the latest revision of BS 7910:1998.

The Procedure presented in Sections 2 to 7 is a specific set of routines for establishing the structural integrity of
welded joints in steel offshore structures. It is offshore specific in that it deals with the peculiar characteristics of
such structures in terms of detailed design and the nature of the loading in such applications.

The features of the Procedure which contribute to this approach include:

i) Results frotn a very large number of additional stress analyses of various (particularly tubular) joints commonly
found on offshore structures,
ii) A n in-depth study of the influence of detailed weld geometry and its effect on local stress distributions and
hence integrity,
iii) Unique treatments of residual stress distributions in appropriate joints,
iv) New information on the ultimate load carrying capacity and hence reserve strength of tubular welded joints
commonly found on offshore structures,
v) The use of reliability-based routines which enable structural integrity to be assessed against target levels of
performance, which are geared to the consequences of failure,
vi) General compatibility with BS 7910:1998.

The Procedure itself is not founded simply on the results of the recent sponsored research but draws togethet
appropriate information from a wide range of relevant sources. To this extent the Procedure aims to be the best
currently available in terms of the overall knowledge base. General structural engineering guidance is published on
methods for assessing defects in welded structures, in the form of BSI Document BS 7910:1998. This document was
updated from the previous BS PD6493:1991 and provides a useful comparison with the Procedure described here.
Given that the revision of BS PD6493:1991 has been known of (and contributed to) for some time, and now
includes an offshore specific Annex, it seemed sensible to present this Procedure in a format similar to BS
7910:1998. This provides users with a reassuring familiarity and permits detailed direct comparison. This Procedure
refers to BS 7910:1998 at several points, recommending the use of clauses in the BSI docuinent in some cases, but
gives more specific guidance where appropriate for other cases. This is an example of bringing together the results
'^^

from the Defect Assessment in Offshore Structures Managed Programme with information from elsewhere to
produce a unified, but much improved, comprehensive approach. A n important feature of the Procedure is the
accompanying detailed Commentary which provides background information for the specific guidance given in the
Procedure.

Section 2 of this Procedure represents standard industry practice for structural analysis, with additional warnings
regarding obscure factors of safety. This is important to ensure that the resulting data are in a satisfactory and
uniform form for the subsequent assessment procedures.

Section 3 incorporates the traditional fatigue endurance (S-N) design routines with options to allow the user to
include a reliability based analysis. These options vary from a simple application of partial safety factors
(multipliers) to, for exainple, the assumed stress range, to more complex routines allowing the user to estimate the
effects of uncertainties in the various inputs to the analysis. T h e overall objective is to provide the user with a tool
to calculate a fatigue lifetime for a predetermined level of reliability. Guidance is given on the selection of this
predetermined level of safety and the effects of structural redundancy in the relationship between individual welded
joint and structural system reliability.

Section 4 incorporates the latest fracture mechanics based assessment for fracture in welded joints in offshore
applications. T h e sequence ofthe individual steps in the analysis follows the pattern of BS 7910:1998 but includes
the evaluation of much greater detail in the stress distributions in the vicinity of a defect.

Section 5 gives a step-by-step description of the fracture mechanics based fatigue assessment for tubular welded
joints containing a crack-like defect. This part ofthe Procedure is supported by a specially developed software
package. This software is recommended because of the repetitive nature of the calculations and the size of the data
sets which are accessed. Section 5 accesses a large amount of new data generated during the Defect Assessment
Managed Programme.

Section 6 gives guidance of the assessment of system reliability, appropriate target levels and the relationships to
individual component (welded joint) reliability.

Section 7 describes how to combine the routines within Sections 3 to 6 to produce a scheme of inspection and
repair.